he verão, the dry season, is over. The wet season, with its secret name, its secret purpose, has returned. There is no mistaking it. Rats, lizards, snakes, flies, a world made wholly of living, breathing things. They glint evil eyes, open fanged mouths. They come at him. The monkeys in his head shriek their orders, each of them just as secret. He’s a loyal solider. He is the asset, their asset. He roars and runs, kicking and thrashing against rabid squirrels clinging to his pants, manic rats biting into his calves. They can’t stop him. He, Jungle-god, delivers punishment, cracking brittle skulls beneath his heels, throttling tiny, squealing necks with his hands.

Then he’s on the jetty, tearing off a last rat along with a chunk of his thigh. Waves smash into the walkway, walls of water rising on either side, a military saber arch. The black tunnel focuses him upon its end. There stands Elisa Esposito and Deus Brânquia, their backs to him, gazing down at the river’s vortex. Strickland covers the distance in seconds, his feet sure despite the river’s spray. There’s an old man, too, off to the side. Strickland recognizes him. It’s the driver of the laundry van. It’s all coming together now. Oh, what a pleasure this will be.

The old man sees Strickland and cries, Elisa! But Strickland is coming too fast. The old man does the last thing Strickland expects, rushing him. Strickland has to stop, his foot slipping across the slick planks, the whorling torrent. He’s off-balance. All he can do is swing the Beretta. It cracks the side of the old man’s head. He goes down hard and lands badly, his torso rolling off the side of the jetty and into the raging waters. There is a suspenseful second, the old man trying to grip the wet wood. He can’t do it. He drops headfirst into the barbed waves.

Now Elisa sees him. Strickland rights himself, aims the gun at Deus Brânquia, ten feet away. But his eyes flick toward Elisa. She’s wearing next to nothing, an untied housecoat. And shoes. Of course, shoes. Sparkling silver heels meant to torture him. This temptress, this jezebel, this deceiver. She was the true Delilah all along, distracting him from her scheme. Instead, he’ll make her serve as witness to Deus Brânquia’s end. Starting now, the Gill-god is of the past. And he, Richard Strickland? It’s like the Cadillac salesman said: The future. You look like a man who’s headed there.

He’s satisfied to be right about one thing. He does, at the end, make the mute girl squawk. It’s her only way to warn Deus Brânquia of the bullet about to be fired. She gulps a water-swirled breath and, her neck veins drawing taut, screams. Strickland is certain it’s the first to ever expel from her weakling throat. It’s a little sound, the breaking of whatever is left of her voice box, the same croak the vulture chained to the Josefina made when it choked on Henríquez’s logbook.

The noise is unique enough to pierce the howling squall. Deus Brânquia turns. Lightning strikes, slashing white through the Gill-god’s blue-green glow. But it is too late. Strickland, man of the future, wields a weapon of the future. He squeezes the trigger, once, twice. In gale winds and pelting showers, it sounds tidy. Pop, pop. Two holes appear in Deus Brânquia’s chest. The creature wobbles. Drops to its knees on the jetty’s edge. Blood spouts outward, mixes with rain.

After such an epic hunt, across two continents, against so formidable a foe, it’s disappointing. It is, however, the nature of the hunt. Sometimes, your prey rages in death, becomes legend. Other times, it winks away, becomes nothing stronger than a fairy tale. Strickland shakes the rain from his face, aims at Deus Brânquia’s bowed head, and pulls the trigger.